The year 2015 marked the 10th anniversary of the Global Shelter Cluster, the inter-agency coordination mechanism for shelter response. During these ten years, coordination has improved in consistency, shelter responses have grown in scale, and there are more people with experience in shelter programming, but people continue to lose their dwellings and be displaced due to conflict and natural disasters. Global humanitarian shelter needs continue to greatly exceed the capacity and resources to respond.

Emergency aid and reconstruction measures supported by Switzerland directly benefit around three and a half million people a year.
Given their scale and tragic consequences, Swiss Humanitarian Aid has focused its attention on the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. (p. 8)

Start of season remains slow in parts of West Africa, abnormal dryness continues in Central America and Haiti

Africa Weather Hazards

A delayed onset of the rainy season, followed by poorly-distributed rainfall, has led to abnormal dryness across southern Burkina Faso, the northern parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, and north-central Nigeria. The lack of rainfall over the past five weeks has delayed planting and negatively affected cropping activities over many local areas of the region.

Programme purpose: The 2009-2010 West
and Central Africa Zone's (WCAZ) Plan aims at providing support to National
Societies to properly address the needs of vulnerable people. The 2009
plan of action focuses on the implementation of the safety and resilient
community framework. Integrated approach targeting community at risk has
been developed with NS and PNS that covers DRR, Health and OD issues at
branch level with strong community participation. Some of the projects
will continue in 2010.

DAKAR, 11 September 2009 (IRIN)
- Relentless rain in parts of West Africa has worsened flooding, leading
governments and aid agencies to step up emergency response efforts.

"It is not yet the end of the rainy
season so we do not know just how bad it will get, but we do know the situation
is already very serious," said Moustapha Diallo, spokesperson for
the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) West and Central Africa office.

Aid agencies estimate that between 400,000
and 600,000 people have been affected by flooding since the beginning …